Monday, March 13, 2006

Woke up the next morning...

UPDATE: Well, that was fast service. Though my day-after "Sopranos" review hadn't been posted to NJ.com when I woke up at the crack of dawn, it showed up 10 minutes after I e-mailed my bosses. So here's the beginning of the column, and remember, if you haven't seen the premiere yet, make like a Knight of the Round Table and run away, fast as you can.
The moral of the story: always keep your cell phone charged.

Wowzers. Where to start? Even if you might have predicted that Tony was going to take a bullet, would you ever have expected it to happen in the first episode of the season? And in such a stupid, pathetic fashion? This wasn’t Tony getting shot by Phil Leotardo, or one of his own captains, or anyone else who should pose an actual threat to him, but by a frail, senile old man in a ratty bathrobe.

And then that crawl into the kitchen! If the episode had closed on the gunshot, it would have been a great shock ending. But to dwell for so long on Tony’s attempt to make a phone call (as a terrified Junior scrambles to hide in an upstairs closet) took it to a whole different level of gut-wrenching.

Whether Tony lives or dies, comes back to full health or walks around with a colostomy bag, I won’t even speculate - mainly because I already know and don’t want to spoil it. But the interesting thing here is how Tony’s past is catching up to him in dangerous ways...
To read the rest, click here. Then hurry back to comment. After sitting on this one for weeks, it's about time I get to hear some other thoughts on them.

2 comments:

bill komissaroff said...

Great Stuff! Wow! Despite the long layoff and the Sepinwall-Super-Bowl-Like-Hype leading up to it, the show did not disappoint.

For me, the visceral and visual impact of the gunshot scene at the end was compounded by the gradual escalation of (the death tone?) from the three previous death scenes starting with the kind of comical heart attack in the car and culminating in the most gruesome, realistic, and terrifying portrayal of a hanging and what happens in its immediate aftermath I have ever seen.

For a split second it was almost funny when a toothless Jr shot the Giant Bear with that tiny little gun. The laugh, however, did not last long.

-Bill from Delaware
(Appreciating the Hype!)

Anonymous said...

Truly, Chase & Co. did not disappoint. And thanks for this morning's great review -- I love that you are such a fan! I really loved all the foreshadowing (that made me ask my husband about half-way through: "They're not going to kill Tony off, are they??") -- like the scene early on when Junior pointed his finger like a gun at Tony, and the scene on the scale/Vito's comments making me wonder if he might just drop dead of a heart attack. By the end, I was convinced he was going to be shot, but that it was going to be the wife of the guy who hung himself (Eugene?). All in all, brilliant return, and I can't wait for next week!!